Michael Gray says Chris Coleman may need £20 million to save Sunderland

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Coleman finds Sunderland find themselves rock bottom of the Championship.

Michael Gray says Chris Coleman may need £20 million to save Sunderland from back-to-back relegations.

Coleman left his position as Wales manager to take the reins at Sunderland, who find themselves bottom of the Championship six months after exiting the Premier League.

Sunderland’s last two bosses have signed 23 players between them over an 18-month period, and Gray believes Coleman must conduct a mid-season overhaul if he is to arrest the club’s slide towards the third tier.

But he will need the funds to do it, and according to Gray it could take up to 20 times the amount spent during the summer transfer window.

Speaking on Talksport’s Jim White show this morning, the former Sunderland left-back said: “January has to be the start of a new regime at the football club from top to bottom. Get out the players – I don’t really want to call them deadwood – who are just simply not good enough.

“Clearly the goalkeepers are not good enough and there’s five, six, seven, maybe even more than that are at that club. You’ve got to freshen it up with the right pedigree/ The right players have got to come into that club. This is where Chris and his staff have got to look around, they’ve got to find out the right players for that club and bring in people who want to wear that shirt. Not (those) who want to sit in the medical room over the Christmas period because it’s too cold for them, or because they don’t like the stick that they get when they play in front of the Sunderland supporters.

“[Chris] cannot work with that squad of players that they’ve got at the minute right now, because they’re not good enough, which is sad for me to say. They need to bring in fresh faces, I hope he’s given the funds – and I’m not talking £40-or-£50-million – I’m talking maybe £15-£20-million because that’ll solve it. If he gets that amount of money and gets players out who just aren’t good enough for the football club, they’be got a chance of getting out of that mess.”

The Coleman era kicks off later this evening against Aston Villa, before another away trip to fellow strugglers Burton Albion on Saturday.

The following weekend’s visit of Reading will be Coleman’s maiden Stadium of Light appearance as manager, in which he will be hoping to oversee Sunderland’s first home win of 2017.